Outlet Grocery Review: Whispering Pines Fruit Farm, Mt. Pleasant Mills, PA

There was just too much fun to be had in northern Juniata and Snyder Counties on Friday night to go home after hitting only ONE salvage grocery store jackpot. The Pallet Grocery Outlet of the last episode was in Brian and Susan's rear view mirror as we partied on...

Whispering Pines Fruit Farm

1652 Martin Brothers Road

Mt. Pleasant Mills, PA 17853

Phone: 570-539-2757

November - March:

Mon - Th: 8 AM - 7 PM

Fri: 8 AM - 8 PM

Sat: 8AM - 5 PM

April - October:

Mon - Fri: 8 AM - 8 PM

Sat: 8 AM - 5 PM

Accepts cash, local checks and credit cards and they have GIFT CARDS for crying out loud. They'll bag your groceries in free bags too.

How To Find It:

Ok, If you went to the Pallet Grocery Outlet in Mifflintown to start this trip, loop around the back of the store to go L on Lost Creek Road. THAT is the name of the road you turn onto off of Rt. 35 S to get there but you won't see a sign that says any such thing on your way in. Go L on Lost Creek and make a L when you get back to Rt. 35 towards Selinsgrove. At the light with the Juniata Bank in town, stay on Rt. 35 and I mean STAY on Rt. 35 for about 10 or 15 miles through some just chest-swelling beautiful Mooville countryside as long as it isn't snowing or dark. Finally, you will come to Rt. 104. Go R towards Harrisburg. There is a nifty, over-decorated snack shop right there where you could stop for a sandwich or something but why? You are on your way to the Whispering Pines and there is NO time to spare on a Friday night.

About 2 miles after you turn south onto Rt. 104 WATCH... you are looking for a sign for MARTIN BROTHERS ROAD. It is actually SR 3004 but you won't have time to look for the segment markers. Just watch and take that L onto Martin Brothers. Follow the road up a ways... maybe 2 more miles and you will see the place on the left.

What's In There:

OH.

MY.

GODddddd... D.

This place is incredible. This time of year there are piles and piles of apples and tomatoes and peaches and pears just piled up everywhere. But this is no fruit stand, my little sparrows... Pull into the lot and brace yourself...

It is not the best organized but that is its terrible beauty... it's a Hall of Mirrors for foodies. Remember foodies? The front door opens into the check out but you won't know that until you finally tear yourself away from the place... this is a smallish room that has bagged up bulk foodstuffs... flours, 25 and 50 pound bags of sugar, cocoa and noodles and all the stuff these Amish people bag and package up for us... some Health and Beauty Aids... I saw 99 cent BIG tubes of Close-Up and Pepsodent toothpaste that, yes, you COULD get at the Dollar Store but you can't get THIS experience at the strip mall... some paper products are also in there and then the spices towards the back but then you notice a little doorway...

The Grains Group

You are led into an anteroom of baked goods and if it doesn't bring true tears to your eyes to see this you have no heart and I can't help you.

Racks and racks of spelt, 5 grain, multi-grain, 7 grain, pumpernickel, rye, wheat and white bread that JUST came out of the oven all of them loaves as big as your head and mostly about $2 each. Long 2-inch-thick slabs of bread with tomatoes and cheese folded into it that weigh about 4 pounds a loaf...

I got the most beautiful day-old Swedish rye for $1.65 and I am NOT sharing. There is a pie case with Shoofly wet and dry bottom. Peach pies, banana crème pies, pumpkin rolls the size of your Uncle Ned's thigh for $7 and some as big as your forearm for $3.75.

The thing I couldn't leave alone? Oh. My. Godddddd. There was a plate of peanut butter cookies sandwiched together with peanut butter icing on a paper plate for $2.50. I don't know how many were there but they were going in that car with Brian and Susan and the 4 kids because if I took them home I was gonna eat them all.

Sorry. This is all that was left after we got back to the ranch.

They were so good the sugar buzz didn't wear off until long after I was back home.

Come out of the bakery room and into the light of the main grocery. Here are the shelves of stuff that will be old hat to you if you ever get the hang of seeing cereal in bags but not in the box for a dollar. Every kind of bagged and boxed and canned good is in here, some of it a little banged up and some not. Freezer cases with pizza and frozen chicken breasts and vegetables. Then.

The Dairy Case.

Oh. My. Godddd.

They had 30 oz tubs of whipped cream cheese for $1.59. The 8 oz. bricks of cream cheese were 79 cents, I think. Butter was about $2.49 a pound. There were case boxes of yogurt for about 20 cents a container and 24 oz. containers of sour cream for 75 cents. Yep. THEN the refrigerated case of cheese.

There is more organic cheese in this store than I have seen at the Giant, The Wegman's and the Whole Foods in Shadyside, Pittsburgh, put together. And some of the sharp aged cheddar, garlic cheddar and Monterrey Jack was getting a tad strong. That's what they say... it's getting "strong."

This means the cheese, which is still alive and not killed dead like the common and vastly inferior cheese-like product you have been brain-washed into believing is cheese as you buy it in the plastic wrap at The Giant, is off-gassing and you are about to get some honest to god cheese taste if you pony up the $1.49 and $1.65 a pound they were asking for this stuff last night.

There is every other kind there at prices of about $3 - $6 a pound, too... but the deal... real cheese for SO cheap...

A lot of it is made by the Grassy Ridge Farm in Thompsontown which is just a stone's throw and you won't need a lot of it grated up on some of that rye bread with a slather of mayo and a slice of some tomato to take you off to a sweet place where the summer never ends until it hits the tip of your tongue. Yum.

Don't Stop There...

Turn around past the 5 pound tubs of peanut butter for $6 and the 12 feet of shelf space devoted to broken pretzels and the bagged up loose jello in every candy color of the rainbow and you will see the gift of this land to these people...

RACKS of pecks and half pecks and 1/4 pecks of apples... Honey Crisps, Jonathans, Galas and 5 more kinds... Pears... red Bartletts and Sekels ... Plums... damson and Santa Rosas, red and purple... Peaches... Sweet Sues, Crest Havens, Madisons, Blazin' Furies, nectarines and so many more... all of them for half the price you'll pay at a roadside stand. The tomatoes were $9 a peck. The apples were $16 a half bushel...

Keep going... there are more things in the case... some cherries, some celery and other salad stuff but then... the Fresh Express 8 oz. bags of chopped triple Romaine hearts were 3 / $1 and...

Now, I know what you do with the 8# bags of shredded lettuce I saw for $2.99 at the Sharp Shopper in Middletown last month.

Brian says they are actually 5-1/4 lbs. to the bag and they are usually packed 4 to the box and you can dress TWENTY-FIVE submarine sandwiches with a bag of this lettuce. He knows his shit. He used to shadow cater the gun shows at the Farm Show Complex when he knew how to smuggle stuff in there in his own salad days and you could get these $2.99 bags of shredded lettuce at the Whispering Pines yesterday for...

...wait for it...

$1.49.

It was a beautiful thing but I didn't have 25 sandwiches to make...

No lie. I got out of this place for $20 and that included the $7.65 I paid for nearly 5 pounds of aged organic cheddar cheese I could NOT live without AND the plate of peanut butter sandwich cookies ...

I only got as far as the parking lot before I saw the tomatoes out there on a table at 99 cents a quart and they were so red and gorgeous I had to go back in...

I nearly made it to the car when I saw the watermelons... orange-fleshed seedless for $2.99 and nice 10 pound seeded ones for about the same price... You know I would have picked at least one of those up but I'd promised the women at the checkout that I would not come back any more that day.

Besides, those peanut butter cookies were calling my name...

How To Leave:

If you aren't going back to Brian and Susan's, head back down Martin Brothers Rd. and turn left onto Rt. 104 S. Follow it out to where it hits Rts. 11/15 S just above Liverpool and you'll be back in Mooville, tearing open those bags of peaches and plums in 30 minutes if you hurry.

Next time: I don't know. I'll think of something. Just now, though, I need a nap.